Life however has to go on without him being President. The question is how? Who should I support instead, given that there's no way in hell I go anywhere else. Personally, I already voted for Edwards in my primary, and that can't be changed. So who?

Barack Obama is a rather easy choice for me, and not just because he's my home state Senator. I like who he is and what he stands for - Edwards impressed me more with his passion for what he stands for. But Obama is a good second choice. So why Obama and not Hillary Clinton, who would still be better than any GOP candidate in existence?

Purely tactical reasons. He doesn't have the best health care plan, at least not yet. He may be a little better about getting us out of Iraq, but I really don't know that. We don't know how he'd handle himself with a real political challenge from the GOP. Yes, he did beat the Chicago machine just to be where he is (admirable), but the GOP noise machine is a different animal altogether. (Emphasis on animal.)

Hillary Clinton has to fight several different opponents in trying for the White House. Specifically, whoever the GOP nominates and the uniformly Clinton-hating media. And by Clinton-hating media I don't refer to the Wall Street Journal or National Review - I mean the New York Times, Washington Post, and all TV networks are uniformly anti-Hillary. This point really cannot be emphasized enough. The so-called impartial national media likely turned the 2000 election with their antagonizing coverage of Al Gore. To a lesser degree, the same thing happened in 2004 with their rather unquestioning stance toward the incumbent. And their treatment of Clinton is as bad as their treatment of Gore starting in 1999.

Now as Democrats, we can either bellyache about the rather slanted coverage against the current frontrunner Clinton - slanted coverage that will not subside until Clinton is destroyed.

Or, we can use the corruption of our news media to our advantage. With respect to the free ride that Obama seems to be getting now, I predict that it will go on should he be nominated. The dust-up about Tony Rezko comes from the major Chicago papers who seem to find it to be a non-story. (Archpundit has the most comprehensive coverage all in one place.) And the anti-Clinton papers of record can't ignore that assessment like they did with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's similar assessment of Whitewater.

I give as my evidence the way CNN and the Washington Post debunked the Fox News and chain e-mail smear that Obama was schooled in a Wahhabist madrassa in Indonesia, supposedly rendering Obama disloyal to America. Calling the conservatives on smearing of Democrats is something that these news outlets just don't do for any other Democrat.

Now that only four viable candidates are left overall, we have four possible matchups and who the media will advantage:

Obama vs. Romney - Advantage Obama, and big. They hate Mittens about as much as they hate any Clinton.Obama vs. McCain - Advantage Obama, but slight. This advantage will build as time goes on, McCain gets less coherent, looks old, and shows his rather foul temper to a media that will reach for the fainting couch.Clinton vs. Romney - Possibly a wash to Romney advantage. The media has a really longstanding animus towards any Clinton, but that's counteracted by Mitt's really obvious phoniness that the media also hates. Plus Mitt's a teetotaler, and drunk-ass reporters don't like that one bit. But you can't discount the media's wish to see Clinton destroyed.Clinton vs. McCain - Big advantage McCain. This advantage should be blindingly obvious to anyone who's watched the so-called impartial national media repeat McCain's "straight talk" horsepuckey as if it were holy writ.

I plea to Democrats - use the corrupt news media to our advantage for once and choose Obama. Yes, I'm being cynical. Too bad. I want to win.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The NYWTimes sums it up. And when I say "sums it up", I mean that they actually obtained the opinions of the traitor to American values Michelle Malkin without mentioning that her stalking of the Frost family.

That would refer to the contraceptive, Plan B. The usual understanding is that it irritates the uterine lining, reducing the chances for implantation of a ball of cells. Turns out that this is wrong. It actually delays ovulation, which means there is no ball of cells to implant. And in an ironic twist, the research that determines that Plan B does not in fact reduce the chance for implantation was done at the Catholic University of Chile.

These new results should (and I emphasize "should") stop the anti-abortion crowd from waving bloody fetuses around with respect to Plan B. "Should", but won't, because propaganda comes easier than the truth for them.

That prediction turned out correct. The willfully ignorant GOP candidates are still pandering to their willfully ignorant conservative base by equating contraception with abortion. Research still says that hormonal contraception does not prevent an already fertilized egg from implanting, but why know better? There's votes to be had and contributions to be raised.

Mr. Too-Lazy-To-Say-He's-Campaigning is attacking Rudy Giuliani on his not-really-a-campaign-yet-so-stop-saying-that blog. Really tenuous connection, too. Apparently an activist judge (read: someone who doesn't adhere to the conservative position) in Brooklyn made a ruling on suing gun manufacturers similar to a ruling he had made while Giuliani was mayor, and this is a reason to attack... Giuliani.

See, conservatives don't even have to make sense when they attack each other.

Part 2 of the two-fer is the Gucci Loafer going to the old-standby boogeyman that conservatives are either afraid or too lazy to give up, the Bill Clinton card. It's apparently all Clinton's fault that we won so easily in Afghanistan that Shrub thought we could really stretch that military until it's almost breaking by going into Iraq for the past four years and Bush's inability to make any changes helps him to blame Clinton and...

Conservative logic. You don't have to follow it. You just have to do as they say.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Fun from Iowa

Marc Ambinder finds Fox reporting that the Gucci Loafer wore, well, Gucci loafers at the Iowa State Fair. However, many commenters say that Fox couldn't even get that right - they're really Ferragamos.

Noted NFL foam duck Michael Vick has finally decided that all the people rolling over to testify against him weren't going to help him any, so he'll plead out. This got me thinking, how conflicted are conservative positions about this case?

On the one hand, the conservative position on animals is that man should be able to use and treat animals any way he wants to, because animals are our lessers. On the other hand, the conservative gets a chance to stick it to a prominent black guy.

Way back in the old days when I was a chemistry major in college, I had to fulfill a social studies requirement for my B.S. (yeah I know the jokes. Ha ha.) degree, which I did by taking a sophomore level U.S. Congress course. One of the books the professor used was Showdown At Gucci Gulch by Alan Murray and Jeffrey Birnbaum to show how things really worked in Incongruous. Anyway, Gucci Gulch refers to the hall of lobbyists and their load of Gucci shoes outside the Capitol floor.

Fast forward to now.

Fred Thompson, while trying to paint himself as the ultimate outsider, was quitethelobbyist in Washington. Thompson is also known as someone who really didn't like his Senate job (caution: George Will) or campaigning, so he generally did nothing. Or as George Will put it,

Running for president is also hard work, which is why all these fake potential candidates rarely come through. I'm also starting to doubt that Fred Thompson will actually make an honest run for the job. Whether gucci loafer Fred* is riding around in a golf cart because he's lazy, or (as is quite possible) because his illness doesn't exactly make him feel like a million bucks all the time, I do not know. Either way, running for preznit is hard work.

I thought of a new nickname for Hollywood Fred. Given his history as a lobbyist working Gucci Gulch and his lack of a work ethic, and because I'm meaner than Atrios is...